Don’t miss great expansion opportunities because of access to cash. Whatever your next move is, make it happen now, with fast and straightforward capital that’s custom-built for every use case.
So, whether you’re acquiring a new business, expanding into new areas, or adding more strings to your bow with new tech, products and services, we’ll not only share your passion but form a lasting partnership with you and push you to achieve it.
Our business loans start from £250,000 and go up to tens of millions. We don’t rule out certain sectors due to outdated financials or perceived risks. Instead, we use intelligent data to take a forward-looking approach.
And, we’ll add value regardless of whether there’s a financial partnership; we’ve helped hundreds of hungry entrepreneurs just like you by inspiring ideas, sharing our experiences and even giving you time to discuss your projects with our founder in an open and transparent Credit Committee.
Meet Mark Derry, Executive Chair of Brasserie Bar Co.
A long time ago, I worked for TGI Fridays, and they gave me a boss that liked me even less than I liked him. Only one person wins that, so I left and went off with some friends and we built a small pub company. When we built it up to about 20 units, we then sold it on and at that point, I went on holiday for a year and a half, came back and started a business called Loch Fyne, which developed Brasserie Blanc, which was our original Brasserie business. And then later on, when we sold Loch Fyne, we kept Brasserie Blanc and continued to develop it.
Well, it’s had its challenges during the various lockdowns, but it’s remarkably successful. We met OakNorth in about 2014-2015 and that was the beginning of the relationship and we’re still there now.
The truth of our original relationship with them was that the clearing banks were not as generous in the amount that they would loan to growing businesses. So, in the discussion with OakNorth, they were prepared to go a little bit further in terms of how much leverage they put in the business and how much money they’d loan to it so we got together. We’ve always enjoyed a good relationship- it’s simpler without OakNorth to get going. It allowed us to get to where we wanted to be in a more timely fashion.
When went into the first lockdown, the business has a £6.7 million gap and we needed to find a way of filling it. We went to the bank and negotiated with them, and they did a fantastic job. So we came out of the pandemic stronger than we were when we went in.
The company was then recently acquired and as it would happen they were with OakNorth. And so we’ve continued with OakNorth at a point where they could have been paid out completely and moved up. All of those things are a credit to the bank.
I do recommend OakNorth. There’s a number of reasons but the relationships are good, we like the guys over there. We’ve been with them for eight years, and we’ve got faith in each other.
We work with almost any industry sector, as long as they’re not involved in areas such as gambling, weapons or oil and gas.
Depending on factors like your business’ risk profile and what you need the funding for, we can provide amortising loans, where you gradually pay off your debt with regular payments, as well as non-amortising loans, where you pay off the loan in a lump sum.
The cost of your loan is based on what kind of borrower you are, or your risk profile, which depends on factors like credit history, industry sector and more. We focus on speed, flexibility and competitive terms over price.
We differ from other lenders in that we can fund your business within days or weeks, rather than months like typical lenders.
At the moment, the minimum loan size that we provide businesses is £250,000.